Chapter 201 (2/2)

Morestern’s body slumped to the ground. He was dead, dead at the hands of a nameless opponent.

…

Outside the underground palace.

“Morestern is dead,” Vance suddenly said. He had been following the situation inside the underground palace closely all along.

He’d left several detecting runes inside earlier, and these runes were telling him that the powerful Level-7 Voodoo Magician’s Life Aura had been completely extinguished.

“Was he killed by the magic puppet?” asked Link.

Vance nodded his head. “I think so,” he said. “If these runes aren’t mistaken, there should only be two fighters left in the underground palace. One is Dorians, and the other is the magic puppet.”

“Can we storm inside now?” asked Celine.

“Any time now,” answered Vance. Vance glanced at the direction of the underground palace and saw that Morestern’s Shadow Fortress was still there. “It takes Mana energy to sustain the Shadow Fortress. Now that Morestern’s dead it should collapse soon. We should wait here for a while.”

Link took the opportunity to ask Vance a question that had been bugging his mind.

“The magic puppet of yours seems quite powerful,” he said. “Tell me more about it.”

“Well, of course she’s powerful!” exclaimed Vance with visible pride in his expressions. “She’s called Nana. Her body was made with Gibb’s Gold which can withstand extremely high and low temperatures. She’s as close to indestructible as is physically possible. The magic seal on her body was made with thorium gold which is the best Mana conductor in the world. I’d also put 1028 units of Solon memory magic seal in her brain so she could learn from combat experience and evolve so she must’ve gotten stronger….”

“Wait, wait, wait a second,” interjected Celine. “I didn’t get most of what you just said there. Can’t you use plainer words?”

“Alright, then,” said Vance. “There are two things that are her strongest points. Firstly, her speed, her extreme speed. She usually likes to walk at a strolling pace, but when she needs to, she can accelerate her speed up to an explosive point and move at a quarter mile per second.”

Celine gulped at the revelation. She was now a Level-6 Warrior and could be considered as one of the best Warriors on the continent. But even if she were to spread out her wings and dive down from the sky, her speed couldn’t be any faster than a tenth of a mile per second. That meant that she was still four times slower than Nana!

Even Link was stunned and incredulous.

“But that’s faster than the speed of sound!” he exclaimed. “Are you sure you didn’t exaggerate this?”

“I did no such thing!” said Vance, looking even more proud of his creation now. “In fact, that was her speed 400 years ago! Don’t forget that Nana can improve and evolve, so to be frank, even I’m not sure how far she’s advanced now. Which is why I must remind you, Celine, that you must only be on the defensive with her, never attempt to attack her!”

Celine rolled her eyes at the Lich’s remarks. She’s not so foolish or insane to ever attempt to attack a monster with such a speed. Not unless she wanted to die, anyway!

“What’s her second strength, then?” asked Link.

“Her second greatest strength was attacking the opponent’s weakest point,” said Vance. For fear that the two couldn’t understand the technical terms, Vance used his bony finger to draw a very simple magic seal on the ground.

“Look at this,” he said. “This is the Level-0 defensive spell, Basic Shield. When the spell is cast, a light shield will appear around the caster’s body. Isn’t that right?”

Both of them nodded their heads.

“Viewed on the surface,” continued Vance, “this light shield seems smooth and uniform, but in truth, there will be some points on the shield where it is much weaker than the other points…Do you follow?”

Celine frowned as she couldn’t understand much of it. Her knowledge in spell foundation was not her strongest suits. Link, on the other hand, nodded keenly, although his brows were still furrowed.

“The points of different strengths do indeed exist,” he said, “but they are usually unstable and don’t exist for long. Every weak point can only last for as long as ten microseconds. How can Nana ever utilize this point?”

Vance nodded his head at Link’s question.

“The fact that her speed can reach a quarter of a mile per second,” he began to explain, “proves that she has an extremely fast reaction speed. In truth, 400 years ago, her reaction speed had reached 0.002 seconds. In other words, two microseconds.”

“That fast?” asked Link, completely astounded.

After coming to this world, Link’s most powerful advantage had been his terrifying thinking speed. He’d once measured that his limit was around one microsecond, and he couldn’t sustain that kind of thinking speed for longer than two seconds. Yet now, he’d met a human-made puppet whose reaction time was almost as fast as his own! He must concede at this point that Vance truly was a genius who should be very proud of his inventions.

“Link,” said Celine, “I think I’m a little frightened by this.” Although she didn’t actually understand the specifics of this puppet’s strengths, she still felt that the reaction speed of two microseconds and the moving speed of a quarter of a mile per hour were just too staggering to think of.

She would have no hope to fight against or even defend herself against someone with such speed. She might even get killed within a second and not even know what hit her!

“Don’t worry,” said Link after thinking about it for a moment. “I’ll protect you from behind.”

There were three of them, and one of them was a Level-7, thousand-year-old Lich who was also the magic puppet’s creator. There was no reason why they couldn’t defeat a single magic puppet, was there? Link’s own reaction time was also dangerously quick too, so he should be able to protect Celine without a problem.

“Alright, then,” said Celine. She knew that Link would never give her empty promises, so now that he’d given her his word, she was finally relieved.

Just then, the faint blue light in the underground palace flashed ever so slightly—the Shadow Fortress had collapsed.

“It’s time,” said Vance. “Let’s go.”

Once again, Vance cast Traceless on all three of them and led the other two into the underground palace. Celine gripped at her blue crystal sword tightly and followed behind the Lich closely. Link was the last one to enter behind Celine. All three were highly focused as they prepared to fight against the invincible magic puppet.